Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Seriously, Why Not Just Spell It "Wensday?" I Mean Come On.

I used to think the United States in America was the world's bestest country in the world. But then I got older and learned about this place they have up north called Canada, and it turns out that Canada is beating us at everything. Their Pacific Northwest is more smug and weed-addled than our Pacific Northwest. Their French-speaking population is vastly more pretentious than our French-speaking population. And the Mayor of Toronto, Rob Ford, is a bigger idiot than any big-city mayor we have down here in Canada's scranus:

(I will heretofore refer to Rob Ford as "Robs Fords," as his considerable girth technically qualifies him as plural.)

If you recall, Fords had the following to say on the subject of cyclists:

"And what I compare bike lanes to is swimming with the sharks. Sooner or later you're going to get bitten," said Ford speaking in 2010 as a Toronto city council-member."And every year we have dozens of people that get hit by cars or trucks. Well, no wonder: roads are built for buses, cars, and trucks, not for people on bikes."My heart bleeds for them when I hear someone gets killed, but it's their own fault at the end of the day."

I'm not sure what comes out of his heart when it bleeds, but I'm assuming it's some form of custard.

Reporter: "Sir, there's a picture that went out on Twitter this morning of you reading while still driving on the Gardiner [Expressway]."Ford: "Yeah, probably. I'm busy."Reporter: "So you read while driving?"Ford: "Yeah, probably, yeah. I'm try[ing] to catch up on my work and you know I keep my eyes on the road, but I'm a busy man."Reporter: "You don't see a problem doing that on the Gardiner?"Ford: "Well, I'm busy. I got to be — I don't know what that has to do with a trade mission, but anyways. Ridiculous questions sometimes, seriously."

This further debunks his "swimming with the sharks" comments, since "sharing" the road with people like this is less like swimming with sharks and more like swimming with distracted manatees. I'd also add that my heart bleeds hummus for obese mayors from Toronto who get killed because they were reading recipes they printed out from "Bon Appétit," but it's their own fault at the end of the day. And even the police are taking him to task:

"Finally, on behalf of all the citizens of Toronto that value road safety, Mr Mayor... please get a driver. It is obvious that you are busy enough to require one and no amount of money you are saving by not having one is worth the life of one of your citizens."

In fairness to Fords, it's not an issue of money. It's more about finding a driver who can be sealed in an Escalade with Fords and not lose consciousness due to all the flatulence. Plus, the records shows that he's actually an excellent driver:

Ford in July admitted he drove past a streetcar's rear doors, and was then confronted by the operator of the streetcar.In October, Ford was accused of illegally dialing numbers on his cellphone and talking on it as he steered his gold minivan westbound along Dundas Street West near Spadina Avenue.And last July, the mayor denied accusations that he gave the middle finger to Ottilie Mason and her six-year-old daughter after the mother accosted him for talking on his cellphone while driving.

That little six-year-old snot had it coming I'm sure.

Meanwhile, by now you've probably seen the video that's taken the Internet by storm, in which a Portlander engages in some "artisanal policework" and busts the guy who stole his bike:

I'd like to be happy for the guy who got his bike back, but to be perfectly honest I thought he was kind of a jerk about the whole thing. Sure, I'm glad he retrieved his property, and sure the thief deserves whatever he gets, but this video is also less like watching justice being done and more like watching someone go "BOOSH!" for nine minutes. Then again, I shouldn't be surprised, since absolutely nobody does "hissy fits" like people from Portland. Anyway, here's how it all went down.

First, the bicycle's owner makes a big deal about how he's up at 6:30am because he has to go to Seattle to recover his stolen bike:

If you're reading this in Portland, you'll be stunned to learn that this really isn't in any way noteworthy, since 6:30am is when a lot of people in the real world actually start their day. (I mean, I don't, but people with actual professional lives do.)

Then, he and his friends get minus three thousand smugness points for driving from Portland to Seattle:

On my first BRA tour, I failed to take the train from Seattle to Portland, and nobody in either city would let me hear the end of it. You can be sure I learned my lesson, since being lectured by Pacific Northwesterners is worse than being waterboarded. Also, if nothing else, the Hardy Boys here missed a great opportunity to turn this into a quintessentially Portland film by including a folksy montage of evocative train shots accompanied by banjo music.

Once in Seattle, the rightful owner of the stolen bicycle outlines a lengthy plan that made me feel sorry for the friends he roped into this:

He also adds that he's "trying to chill out and think of a plan and not be emotional about it," though in a stressful situation like this nobody's above suspicion--and that includes grandpa pushing the shopping cart:

"This guy's going down for a felony," he concludes, while squinting sherriff-like in the sun I didn't think Seattle had:

And here's the guy who's "going down:"

Shifty and rat-like, you can tell he realizes this sale is easy. Too easy. That's when the plan goes awry and, despite his earlier assurances, the rightful owner gets like totally emotional about it. And when Portanders get emotional, they act out things they've seen in movies:

"You're under citizen's arrest!," cries the bike's owner, which is about as effective as pretending to be Spider-Man and shooting webs out of your wrists.

As the "perp" flees, we get a glimpse of his girlfriend, and perhaps my biggest problem with this film from a narrative perspective is the lack of female character development:

Who is Jessica? How did she get wrapped up in all this? How was she "involved?" Was she turned on by Rat Face and his audacious Craigslist caper? Are they a Tarantino-esque pair of tandem outlaws? Or is she simply a naif who unwittingly stumbled into the dark and sordid world of Fred-dom gone bad?

Alas, all we'll ever know is that she's the proverbial "one who got away:"

Also, the film makes too much use of the "shaky cam" conceit, as in the scene during which the rightful owner cries, "I got your face on camera, asshole! You are fucked!," and his friend Simon follows the "perp" in lukewarm pursuit:

The "black screen" effect on the other hand does ratchet up the suspense considerably, and also heightens our awareness of Rat Face's utter stupidity:

Between amateur policing and poor legal advice, the Internet is clearly unraveling our social fabric faster than a cheap chamois.

Finally though, the actual police arrive on the scene, and the cop has that look of weary resignation people get when they're dealing with someone from Portland:

Meanwhile, the chase continues on foot, and the rightful owner begins to taunt the perp:

"This is how it goes down everybody, this is why you don't steal from bicyclists." Yes, because they will annoy you to death.

And the taunts continue as the perp is finally arrested in the parking lot of a Safeway:

This is where I thought the owner went too far. You got your bike back, and you got the pleasure of seeing the person who may have stolen it actually getting arrested, which is something few bike victims will ever get to experience. Given this, the jeering is just gratuitous. Plus, Rat Face is totally going to go "Cape Fear" on him.

And then comes the Big Reveal, when we finally learn that the bike in question was...a Fuji:

That's it? A Fuji? Sure, there's nothing wrong with a Fuji, but given the buildup and the Portland backdrop I was expecting something a bit more exotic. This is like if the car in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" was a Hyundai instead of a Ferrari.

Anyway, after this there's a little more gloating:

And, as the cineastes say, "Fin:"

Again, I'm glad the guy got his bike back, but it seems like there was a way to edit this down to about 45 seconds and not make the owner look like a vindictive nutcase.

Speaking of smugness, another reader has sent me this video, in which a vegan boasts about breaking his bamboo bike:

"I just wanted to kind of bring up the whole issue here with people who think that vegetarians and vegans and raw vegans are really weak," he explains:

Actually, most people don't think vegetarians and vegans are weak, they just think vegetarians and vegans are annoying. He's also incorrect in saying that cyclists are strong. Cyclists have physical proficiency in exactly one thing, which is propelling a bike, and once you take them off that bike they're mostly just spindly and useless. Sure, there are some cyclists who try to develop strength in other areas, and those cyclists are called "triathletes." Unfortunately though they just wind up like the dog who saw his reflection and make a complete mess of everything.

Nevertheless, this particular vegan wants to prove that vegans are strong, and his proof is that "I broke, literally, my bamboo frame on my bike:"

Wow, really? You broke your crudely constructed frame made from twigs? This is a feat of strength akin to tearing three plies of wet toilet paper. Here's a closer look at the rolling bird's nest:

Fortunately, the frame is not a total loss, since he can at least use the tubing to make some delicious vegan bamboo soup. Instead though he tells us that, "It's gonna go as a trophy piece in the hostel," as he surreptitiously shows off his ink:

So has he learned his lesson and decided to get a frame made out of something that can withstand his strength, like metal or even candy canes? No, he hasn't:

I'd like to chase that smarmy vegan down the street with a thick-cut slice of bacon. But then w/my luck, somebody like Fords would run me over and steal my bacon. Then I'd have to do a craigslist ad trying to hire the bike detective to fetch back my bacon.

Hey Snob, have you seen this book review of Grant Petersens 'Just Ride' in the New York Times?

"Many a weekend bicycle rider has had the same unsettling experience: You ask a friend to ride with you along some scenic, low-impact route. You show up wearing shorts, Sambas and a T-shirt, and he shows up dressed for an Olympic time trial. On his torso is a very tight shirt slashed with a half-dozen garish colors and logos irrelevant to him. His helmet, decorated with flames or stripes or both, is equipped with a rearview mirror. A rubber straw dangles around his neck like a fur stole, through which he can drink fluids from a container on his back. And then there are the spandex leg-­enclosures. These have patches of yellow on either flank, giving the impression that your friend is wearing chaps. Yellow-and-black spandex chaps."

I'm with Nebraska Bike Commuter on the synopsis. That guy should get a bamboo bike. That way no one would steal it. Who's steals a damn Fuji, anyway? It's the only bike in my garage that will get left out in the yard with no real concern. It's got Iiagra, bitches...Tiagra. Tiagra is Italian for "Bring some allen wrenches".

I'm glad to see you acknowledge that cyclists are proficient in only one thing - i.e. cycling. I was beginning to worry, what with the occasional cyclocross and so on, that you were actually, unlike me, a competent sportsperson.

However, I doubt you can outdo my sheer range of physical incompetence. For example, I once as a child participated in a swimming gala where it took me the same time to swim one length as the other competitors took for two.

I aired the issues in some detail here: http://invisiblevisibleman.blogspot.com/2012/08/commuting-racing-and-french-col-climb_7376.html

Mmm, bacon. Just saw chocolate dipped bacon on a stick at Pierogifest recently. Also deep-fried chocolate eclairs. I'd stick a candle in one for Leroy's birthday but Robs Fords got there first and there's nothing left.

ok i'm in bruckheimer's office and we're pitching our concept which is a 'hommage' to a film that is totally not star wars mr lucas, but we see jessica in a metal bikini being menaced by the bike-hating jabba, sorry ROBS FORDS, sorry mr lucas please put your lawyers back on their leashes, and she's rescued by the ratface bikethief who turns out to actually be her brother who has this weord power to ride bikes, we could call it 'the force', ow sorry mr lucas stop hitting me please. and our main villain is this portlandia nut who has turned to the smug side. what the hell do you mean, 'copyright infringement' mr lucas, you cant copyright universal truths mr lucas....please put that injunction down, mr bruckheimer......mr bruckheimer!!!! help!!!!!!............

2nd video- I'll tell you what the locals at the hostel will do with that frame- they won't hang it on a wall as a trophy- they'll probably fix it and ride it. Oh, and when the old guy won't drop the frame on the ground; that wasn't a language barrier- that was a culture barrier, and the decadent wasteful westerner didn't understand why the local didn't want to drop something nice as if it were a piece of garbage.

2nd video- I'll tell you what the locals at the hostel will do with that frame- they won't hang it on a wall as a trophy- they'll probably fix it and ride it. Oh, and when the old guy won't drop the frame on the ground; that wasn't a language barrier- that was a culture barrier, and the decadent wasteful westerner didn't understand why the local didn't want to drop something nice as if it were a piece of garbage.

Years ago, with the help of a neighbor near my place of employment, I chased down a bike-thief who had just stolen my girlfriend's bike (which I was commuting to work on that day) as I was getting my morning coffee at a local cafe. Upon running the thief down, pulling him down from a fence he was scaling in a yard I put my knee in his back as he lay face down in the grass.

3 police cars showed up within about 5 minutes. I had to talk the tenant of the house whose yard we were in out of beating the "perp" senseless for obvious reasons (said tenant was upset at being awakened early on a Sunday morning).

The whole thing was 1 month from going to court, backed by multiple witness statements, etcetera, when the thief pled guilty.

I never found out what happened to him but it was sweet justice to run him down in an alley and return my girlfriend's bike to her on her birthday - hahaha!

Now mechanics knows around exactly where the trouble lies. (There are actually even now a number of achievable will cause.) Then they autocom cdp pro for trucks pinpoints the trouble. Several of process require extra instruments or qualified competencies, but ordinarily the initial a couple of measures of total treatment is straightforward. Like "see if a fuel cap is just not loose" or "check the parameter of the specified sensor (carried out with the exact handheld unit)"

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About Me

While I love cycling and embrace it in all its forms, I'm also extremely critical. So I present to you my venting for your amusement and betterment. No offense meant to the critiqued. Always keep riding!